his hand will be against every man, and every man's hand against him.
for two days mrs. glynde had been going about the world with a bright red patch on either cheek; and it would seem that on the third day, namely, the sunday, things came to a crisis in her disturbed mind. at morning service her fervour was something astonishing—the quaver in her voice was more noticeable in the hymns than ever, and the space devoted to silent prayer after the blessing was so abnormally long that stark, the sexton, had to rattle the keys twice, with all due respect and for the sake of his sunday dinner, before she rose from her knees; whereas once usually sufficed.
it was the devout practice that all the rectory servants should go to evening service, while mrs. glynde, or dora, or both, remained at home to take care of the house. on this particular evening mrs. glynde proposed that dora should stay with her, and what her mother proposed dora usually acceded to.
“dear,” said the elder lady, with a nervous little jerk of the head which was habitual or physical, “i have heard about arthur.”
they were sitting in the drawing-room, with windows open to the ground, and the fading light was insufficient to read by, although both had books.
“yes, mother,” answered the girl in rather a tired voice, quite forgetting to be cheerful. “i should like to know exactly what you heard.”
“well, anna told me,” and there was a whole world of distrust in the little phrase, “that arthur had asked you to be his wife, and that you had refused without giving a reason.”
“i gave him a reason,” replied dora; “the best one. i said that i did not love him.”
there was a little pause. the two women looked out on to the quiet lawn. they seemed singularly anxious to avoid looking at each other.
“but that might come, dear; i think it would come.”
“i know it would not,” replied dora quietly. there was a dreaminess in her voice, as if she were repeating something she had heard or said before.
suddenly mrs. glynde rose from her chair, and going towards her daughter, she knelt on the soft carpet, still afraid to look at her face. there was something suggestive and strange in the attitude, for the elder woman was crouching at the feet of the younger.
“my darling,” she whispered, “i know, i know! i have known all along. but mind, no one else knows, no one suspects! it can never come to you again in this life. women are like that, it never comes to them twice. to some it never comes at all; think of that, dear, it never comes to them at all! surely that is worse?”
dora took the nervous, eager hands in her own quiet grasp and held them still. but she said nothing.
“i have prayed night and morning,” the elder woman went on in the same pleading whisper, “that strength might be given you, and i think my prayers were heard. for you have been strong, and no one has known except me, and i do not matter. the strength must have come from somewhere. i like to think that i had something to do with it, however little.”
again there was a silence. across the quiet garden, from the church that was hidden among the trees, the sound of the evening hymn came rising and falling, the harshness of the rustic voices toned down by the whispering of the leaves.
“i know,” mrs. glynde went on, speaking perhaps out of her own experience, “that now it must seem that there is nothing left. i know that it can never come to you, but something else may—a sort of alleviation; something that is a little stronger than resignation, and many people think that it is love. it is not love; never believe that! but it is surely sent because so many women have—to go through life—without that—which makes life worth living.”
“hush, dear!” said dora; and mrs. glynde paused as if to collect herself. perhaps her daughter stopped her just in time.
“there is,” she went on in a calmer voice, “a sort of satisfaction in the duties that come and have to be performed. the duties towards one's husband and the others—the others, darling—are the best. they are not the same, not the same as if—as they might have been, but sometimes it is a great alleviation. and the time passes somehow.”
it is not the clever people who make all the epigrams; but sometimes those who merely live and feel, and are perhaps objects of ridicule. mrs. glynde was one of these. she had unwittingly made an epigram. she had summed up life in five words—the time passes somehow.”
“and, dear,” she went on, “it is not wise, perhaps it is not quite right, to turn one's back upon an alleviation which is offered. arthur would be very kind to you. he is really fond of you, and perhaps the very fact of his not being clever or brilliant or anything like that might be a blessing in the future, for he would not expect so much.”
“he would have to expect nothing,” said dora, speaking for the first time, “because i could give him nothing.”
she spoke in rather an indifferent voice, and in the gloom her mother could not see her face. it was a singular thing that neither of them seemed to take arthur agar's feelings into account in the very smallest degree; and this must be accounted to them for wisdom.
dora was, as her mother had said, very strong. she never gave way. her delicate lips never quivered, but she took care to keep them close pressed. only in her eyes was the pain to be seen, and perhaps that was why her mother did not dare to look.
“there is no hurry,” she pleaded. “you need not decide now.”
“but,” answered dora, “i have decided now, and he knows my decision.”
“perhaps after some time—some years?” suggested mrs. glynde.
“a great many years,” put in dora.
“if he asks you again—oh! i know it would be better, dear; better for you in every way. i do not say that you would be quite happy. but it would be a sort of happiness; there would be less unhappiness, because you would have less time to think. i do not say anything about the position and the wealth and such considerations, for they are not of much importance to a good woman.”
“after a great many years,” said dora, in that calm and judicial voice which fell like ice on her mother's heart, “i will see—if he chooses to wait.”
“yes, but—” began mrs. glynde, but she did not go on. that which she was about to say would scarcely have been appropriate. but so far as the facts were concerned she might just as well have said it. for dora knew as well as she did that arthur agar would not wait. women are not blind to manifest facts. they know us, my brothers, better than we think. and they are not quite so romantic as we take them to be. their love is a better thing than ours, because it is more practical and more defined. they do not seek an ideal of their own imagination; but when something approaching to it crosses their path in the flesh they know what they want, and they do not change.
before the silence was again broken the murmur of voices told them that the church doors had been opened, and presently they discerned a female form crossing the lawn towards the open window. it was sister cecilia, walking with that mincing lightness of tread which seems to be the outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual superiority over the remainder of womanhood. good women—those mistaken females who move in an atmosphere of ostentatious good works—usually walk like this. like this they enter the humble cot with a little soup and a lot of advice. like this they smilingly step, where angels would fear to tread, upon feelings which they are incapable of understanding.
mrs. glynde got quietly up and left the room. as the door closed behind her sister cecilia's gently persuasive voice was heard.
“dora! dora dear!”
“yes,” replied the girl without any enthusiasm, rising and going to the window.
“will you walk with me a little way across the fields? it is such a lovely evening.”
“yes, if you like.”
and dora passed out of the open window.
“i am sorry,” said sister cecilia after a few paces, “that you were not in church. we had such a bright service.”
dora, like some more of us, wondered vaguely where the adjective applied, especially on a gloomy evening without candles, but she said nothing.
“i stayed at home with mother,” she explained practically. “the servants were all out.” sister cecilia was not listening. she was gazing up at the sky, where a few stars were beginning to show themselves.
“one feels,” she murmured with a sigh, “on such an evening as this, that, after all, nothing matters much.”
“about the servants do you mean? they are going on better now.”
“no, dear, about life. i mean that at times one feels that this cannot be the end of it all.”
“well, we ought to feel that, i suppose, being christians.”
“and some day we shall see the meaning of all our troubles,” pursued sister cecilia. “it is so hard for us older ones, who have passed through it, to stand by helpless, only guessing at the pain and anguish of it all, whereas, perhaps, we could help if we only knew. a little more candour, a little more confidence might so easily lead to mutual help and consolation.”
“possibly,” admitted dora, without any encouragement.
“i am so sorry for poor arthur!” whispered sister cecilia, apparently to the evening shades.
dora was silent. she knew how to treat sister cecilia. jem had taught her that.
“it has been such a terrible blow. his letters to his mother are quite heartbroken.”
dora reserved her opinion of grown-up men who write heartbroken letters to their mothers.
“i know all about it,” sister cecilia went on, quite regardless of the truth, as some good people are. “dora, dear, i know all about it.”
silence, a silence which reminded sister cecilia of a sense of discomfiture which had more than once been hers in conversation with jem.
“have you nothing to tell me, dear?” she inquired. “nothing to say to me?”
“nothing,” replied dora pleasantly. “especially as you know all about it.”
“will you never change your mind?” persuasively.
“no, i am not the sort of person to change my mind.”
there was a little pause, and again sister cecilia whispered to the evening shades.
“i cannot help hoping that some day it may be different. it is not as if there were any one else—?”
silence again.
“i dare say,” added sister cecilia, after waiting in vain for an answer to her implied question, “that i am wrong, but i cannot help being in favour of a little more candour, a little mutual confidence.”
“i cannot help feeling,” replied dora quietly, “that we are all best employed when we mind our own business.”
“yes, dear, i know. but it is very hard to stand idly by and see young people make mistakes which can only bring them sorrow. i want to tell you to think very deeply before you elect to lead the life of a single woman. it is a life full of temptation to idleness and self-indulgence. there are many single women who, i am really afraid, are quite useless in the world. they only gossip and pry into their neighbours' affairs and make mischief. it is because they have nothing to do. i have known several women like that, and i cannot help thinking that they would have been happier if they had married. perhaps they did not have the chance. one does not understand these things.”
sister cecilia cast her eyes upwards toward the tree-tops to see if perchance the explanation was written there.
“of course,” she went on complacently, drawing down her bonnet-strings, “there are many useful lives of single women. lives which the world would sadly miss should it please god to take them. women who live, not for themselves, but for others; who go about the world helping their neighbours with advice and the fruits of their own experience; ever the first to go to the afflicted and to those who are in trouble. they do not receive their reward here, they are not always thanked. the ignorant are sometimes even rude. they have only the knowledge that they are doing good.”
“that must be a satisfaction,” murmured dora fervently.
“it is, dear; it is. but—you will excuse me, dora dear, if i say this?—i do not think you are that sort of woman.”
“no,” answered dora, “i don't think i am.”
“and that is why i have said this to you. now, don't answer me, dear. just think about it quietly. i think i have done my duty in telling you what, was on my mind. it is always best, although it is sometimes difficult, or even painful; but then, it is one's duty. kiss me, dear! good-night!—good-night!”
and so sister cecilia left dora—mincing away into the gloom of the overhanging trees. and so she leaves these pages. verily the good have their reward here below in a coat of self-complacency which is as impervious to the buffets of life as to the sarcasm of the worldly.
